Memorial Day weekend

Nothing is better than a obligation free long holiday weekend, beginning Saturday I quilted this mariners compass I pieced of few years ago. I love the background fabric on this piece, it so represents my family members that come from all over the world. I also finished my round robin compass and hung it up in the gable end of my dye studio. It looks wavy on the edges due to the fact I have it pinned between the different height frame boards of the structure. I also found a good place to put some of my natural dyed yarn.

On Sunday I packed my hand quilting and went to a pow wow with my husband. A native women did this bead work on the back of her vest. She told me this was her husbands favorite t-shirt and when he died she beaded it and sewed it on the back of her vest to honor him.

When one of the dancers came by I realized years ago I had natural dyed his breech clout and sewed a silk binding on the edge. I'm not sure if I used onion skins or turmeric but the color was still beautiful.

Monday morning we packed a picnic lunch and spent the day boating on the river. It was so beautiful and peaceful. After all winter it feels so good to see green!

My husband motoring our boat.

We try to stay off the main branch of the river and take the little tributaries, there's so much more wild life there. The water lillies were just beginning to open. The color was beautiful.

This is a huge blue heron taking off from the lillies.

Along one of the banks this huge turtle was sunning himself. His neck and head are on the right side.

Students teaching me new dying tricks

I have my dye studio open and a pot of comfrey presoaking, waiting for the fabric. Comfrey is an medicinal herb and it is suppose to give a green dye color, we'll see. This is my friend Windi, a couple of summers ago I had a dye class and taught her and her friends natural dying. Now, she leading her own dying class for her Renaissance (Kings, Queens, Knights and castles etc.) group. She came over and we went into our woods collecting plants to dye with. Here she's holding wild onions for the kids in the group to taste test (she also heads up the children's craft group.

The fiddle heads ferns are beautiful, she picked a few a those to try.

We've had a nice raining spring and the creek was overflowing it's banks. I love to see the sunlight coming threw the woods on the water.

I couldn't resist showing another picture.

These are a few of her class samples. The indigo is linen, it was beautiful. I think I'm going to try playing with linen some day. How easy is it to make a linen quilt? The rest are wool.

Windi is a very creative person (this picture I took a couple of years ago when I was teaching the class, I don't know why it uploaded so small). She is dying several yards of wool here to make into a cloak and wanted different color bands. She rigged up this rack and has the stove and dye pot underneath the fabric. She's dying it with cochineal.

Her fabric is drying on the right. The other fabric is Becky's, she tied hers to achieve different designs. Hers also was made into a cloak. You can see Windi's has a wide white band yet. The next day we dyed it with indigo.

This is Windi now, modeling her finished cloak, she is quite clever! My lilacs are beautiful this year.

Round Robin Quilt

I haven't blogging lately due to computer problems, I could not up load my photos, but I'm up and going now. A couple of years ago I did a round-robin quilt exchange with one of my quilt bees. We all began by making our own mariner compass block then sending the block with extra fabrics around to each other in January. At our Christmas party the next Dec. we got our quilt top back. They were all wonderful. This was mine, I've finally begun machine quilting it, hopefully I will finished it this week.

I went to a lecture on color by Kaffee Fassett last week. He lives in England and is very well known for his knitting, needlepoint, quilt patterns and books. He is also well known for the fabrics he designs. A lot of designers now use the computer to color in their fabric design, Kaffee still hand paints all of his.

I love this picture (it was a slide on the screen). This is a picture of his dinning room, a little busy, but wonderful! It reminds me of his fabrics he designs.

His books are a feast for the eyes. I love how he photographs his quilts with nature. This is one of his first books and I think they keep getting better.

This is one of the pictures in the book, it reminds me of his dinning room. (of course this wouldn't be one of the outdoor pictures).

A lot of the women at the lecture were knitters, this women is working on a afghan pattern that is popular around here now. Knitters are exchanging their left over sock yarn and knitting little bias squares with tiny needles.

She has great color sense.